


solid embrace, kind face (then the hurt starts leaving)

by autumnchills



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Blindness, Dizziness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Evan "Buck" Buckley-centric, Fire, Fireworks, Health Scares, Hospitals, Hurt Evan "Buck" Buckley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Temporarily blinded, Tinnitus, Whump, Worried Eddie Diaz, call gone wrong, disorientation, why arent any of these things tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29506770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/autumnchills/pseuds/autumnchills
Summary: There’s no way to properly explain what happens. Buck sees it before he hears it. Multiple flashes of light assault his eyes, and then the sound hundreds of pops are going off. It sounds like gunfire, but he knows better.He hears the piercing sound of glass shattering next. Buck barely brings his arm up in time to stop the glass that’s flying toward him from smacking his face. His turnout gear protects him from any other potential damage as what looks like mini rockets fly into and out of the house in every direction.—When the team responds to a house fire in the middle of the night, it seems pretty straightforward. A generator in the back room sparked a fire. It’s just too bad that it wasn’t the only thing in the room that was ready to spark.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 49
Kudos: 370
Collections: 9-1-1 Tales





	solid embrace, kind face (then the hurt starts leaving)

**Author's Note:**

> Small fun fact before we begin is that this idea has been on my mind since December 2019 ~ It’s been sitting with me since then and the promo for next week’s episode finally kicked my butt into gear.
> 
> Title taken from A closeness by Dermot Kennedy
> 
> Special Thank You to my Beta Reader [MyShipSailsHere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyShipSailsHere/pseuds/MyShipSailsHere)!

Around this time of year, shifts are straight from hell, so it’s surprising that the day has allowed them as much downtime as they’ve gotten. Everyone is on edge though, waiting for something to break the calm. 

Where people should be asleep, they sit resting to preserve energy instead, knowing that something is bound to happen. Buck and Eddie relax, side by side on the couches carrying a low conversation with Hen about different after-school snack ideas. Bobby is stowed away in his office, likely doing paperwork to avoid overflow later, and Chim is on the phone with Maddie, talking about her shift during her break. 

The rest of the station is spread about, a couple of them at the couches just listening in to the conversation or doing their own thing on their phones. They remain comfortable but vigilant. 

Their patience pays off. 

It’s nearing three in the morning when the alarms sound through the station, alerting them of a residential fire. Though they’ve all been waiting for something to happen, this isn’t the big bang they’ve been expecting. 

No one thinks anything of the fire because it’s not uncommon to get them around the holidays. Almost immediately after Halloween, houses were setting up for Christmas, intending to get the most of the holiday season. It’s a common time for electrical fires— a sucky way to find out that your Christmas lights aren’t any good anymore. 

Two weeks into December and they’ve already seen the uptick in decoration-related incidents. They were getting all kinds of holiday calls, from trees catching fire to specialty candles burning a bit more than their own wick and wax. There are also plenty of people falling off of roofs, and just earlier in the day, they’d responded to a guy whose leg went through the floor of his attic while rummaging around for his decorations.

So, it only makes sense that they expect yet another Christmas mishap when they’re startled from their calm night. 

They soon realize that it definitely isn’t.

The fire itself isn’t very large when they respond to the scene, only consuming a single room, as far as they know. It had started in the back of the house where an old generator had sparked a fire in the middle of the night. 

“Alright,” Bobby calls out as they empty out of the firetruck. “Johnny and Hal, I need you guys inside. The fire hasn’t reached the front of the house but they’re worried about a family pet.” The two take off as Bobby gives more orders. “Hen, I need you with the father. He sustained some burns trying to put it out with a garden hose.”

Hen takes off with a muttered, “Of course,” under her breath. They always get someone who managed to hurt themselves doing something that a firefighter should. They get it— it’s instinct to try to put out a fire and minimize the damage— but it never fails to leave someone with injuries in the process. 

Bobby turns to Buck and Eddie then. “You two,” he addresses them, meeting their eyes before turning to point at the side of the house. “I need you guys with a hose at the source. The generator is in the sunroom around the back of the house— the owners left the side gate open. The father tried to put out the fire from the backyard, so the door to the room should be open.” Both of them nod in confirmation, already throwing their helmets on. “Our understanding is that the fire is on the wall and got inside from a curtain that caught fire in an open window, so it hasn’t consumed that room yet as it’s mostly moving forward. Keep it from the rest of the room, and push forward into the house if you can.”

Simple, the two men figure.

“Chim, Sanchez, and Jones, I need you guys to vent—” Buck and Eddie are on the move before they can hear the rest of Bobby’s orders to the rest of the team. One of their fellow teammates feeds them the line as they push toward the back.

“A generator,” Eddie comments above the cacophony of the area. “Seems like everyone is getting one these days, huh?

“People are worried about an overloaded power grid, especially during the summers,” Buck shrugs as he follows close behind his boyfriend toward the back. “You can never be too prepared.”

Eddie grunts in response and jerks his head at the house as they round the corner to the back. “Apparently you can,” he says. 

And then they get their first real look at the fire through the glass walls of the sunroom. The flames have spread into the room in front of the sunroom as Bobby had reported to them— they can see that much through the windows on the wall that the two rooms share— but the other information is outdated. A lot of the back room is consumed in fire. A floor plant is up in flames and the couch is starting to burn with it. The heat smacks them in the face from the open glass windows as they pass it. 

They both flinch, and Eddie falls back to radio their Captain while Buck pushes forward to the door leading to the sunroom. It’s unlocked just as Cap said it would be, and he aims the firehose at the flames.

“Cap, the back room is going up in flames!” Eddie shouts into his radio. “We’re going to need another…”

Eddie drifts off as he spies a box near the couch smoking, a faint hissing sound accompanying it. He nearly misses it over the crackling of the flames, and he can barely make out the box as the source through the already smokey room, but there are distinct plumes of smoke coming out of the box flaps. One of the corners is lit by a smaller flame, so it’s clear that something in the box is on fire, but what would make that sound?

Eddie’s eyes drift to Buck, still aiming the hose at the largest flames in the room and trying to clear a path through the doorway. 

“Eddie?” Bobby asks in confusion. “What’s going—”

The sharp _pop_ that rings through the night has everyone dropping.

All at once, steady lights from the men on the roof point in a few different directions as they each duck down and the hose stutters to a stop as Buck crouches with an arm over his head.

Eddie doesn’t move, though, trying to scan the area.

“What the hell was that?” Chimney shouts down the radio, loud enough that Eddie hears him from where he is on the roof. 

“Are we under fire?” Someone else asks.

Seemingly out of harm’s way, Buck spares a look around the backyard before going back to the hose and shouting at the guys on the roof.

The hissing increases rapidly, louder and grabbing Eddie’s attention again, and he can see that the box has moved. It also has a black spot starting to burn through the side. 

And that’s when it clicks. It wasn’t gunfire, it was—

“Everyone pull back!” Eddie shouts. “Pull back now! There’s—”

There’s no way to properly explain what happens. Buck sees it before he hears it. Multiple flashes of light assault his eyes, and then the sound hundreds of _pops_ are going off. It sounds like gunfire, but he knows better. 

He hears the piercing sound of glass shattering next. Buck barely brings his arm up in time to stop the glass that’s flying toward him from smacking his face. His turnout gear protects him from any other potential damage as what looks like mini rockets fly into and out of the house in every direction.

Distantly, he hears someone yell, “Fireworks!” and Buck goes to take a step back from the building, but a body collides with his own, and Buck can _feel_ a gust of air from something flying by his face, just having barely missed him.

Buck hits the ground with a huff, his helmet rattling his head and the ground smacking into his back so hard that the last of the air in his lungs flies right out of his mouth. 

The popping roars on as Buck gasps, trying to catch his breath. Whoever is on top of him brackets his body with their own, and Buck belatedly realizes that it must be Eddie because only his boyfriend would do something stupid like play human shield between him and danger.

“Stay down!” Eddie yells, and he does because there isn’t much else Buck _can_ do with the weight of the other man above him and the wind properly knocked out of him.

They stay like that, unmoving as yells and shouts fill the night air with the fireworks. 

A second later and there’s a crackle and sizzling sound from their side, and the two men turn their heads in sync. Bright lights still dance in Buck’s eyes, so he can’t see what’s happening, but it doesn’t sound good.

Chim’s voice, a pitch higher than usual, comes through the radio. “Those things just sparked a fire in the backyard, Cap! Buck! Eddie! You guys need to move!”

“On it!” Eddie responds, jumping up to his feet. It’s only then that Buck realizes that the fireworks have stopped exploding, but he can still hear a shrill ringing in his ears. He tries to gather his bearings, but everything feels off-kilter as he rolls onto his side to push himself off of the ground.

“Buck!” Buck startles as a hand comes down on his shoulder, gripping his jacket and hauling him backward and off of the ground. “We need to move!” He nearly trips over his own feet as he stumbles back, but Eddie’s arm wraps around him, sliding around his waist as his hand clasps around Buck’s.

“Buck?” Eddie asks. “Babe, what’s going on?”

“Eddie!” Bobby yells through the radio, his Captain voice in full effect. 

“I can’t—” Buck shakes his head and gulps. “I can’t see.”

“Something’s wrong, Cap,” Chimney reports for them. He’s still on the roof where he and a couple of others are the only ones who can see them. “Buck’s struggling.”

Eddie’s hand twitches in his own and Buck blinks rapidly, trying to see past the splotches of white in his vision. Out of the corners of his sight, the dark of the night seeps through, but every time he tries to chase it, it moves.

“Shit,” Eddie mutters. He pulls Buck forward. “Did you hit your head when you went down?”

Buck shakes his head as Eddie guides him away from where they stood. He hears people run past them, yelling about the grass or something, but Buck can hardly focus on it. He’s too distracted by the fact that _he can’t see_ , and the ringing in his right ear is hardly any help.

“I think it was the light,” he eventually says, then trips over the edge of a step as they move from grass to concrete. Both Eddie and someone else keep him from face planting. 

“What’s going on?” Hen’s voice fills his ears. Her hands pat around him in search of an injury.

“He can’t see,” Eddie says. Hen’s hands leave his shoulders and she places them on his face, turning his head toward where Buck assumes she’s standing. “He was too close to the fireworks when they went off. I think they blinded him.”

“What?” Buck croaks. 

“Temporarily,” Eddie quickly clarifies. “Sorry,” he mutters, then presses a kiss to Buck’s temple. 

“Hey,” Bobby calls as he strides up to them. “What’s going on?”

“Can’t see,” the three of them say at once. 

“Are you okay?” the captain asks.

“Fine,” Buck says, though the waver in his voice betrays him, “just super off. I— I have this nasty ringing in my ear, too.”

“Are you dizzy?” Hen asks, tilting his head again. “Feel nauseous or anything?” 

“Not nauseous. Hard to tell if I’m dizzy from loss of sight or impaired hearing, though,” he laughs nervously. 

“Alright, well let’s get you loaded up so—”

Buck interrupts Bobby with a groan. “The hospital?” he asks. “It’s just some light and ear ringing,” he protests. “That’ll go away.”

“Fireworks are enough to blind permanently,” Bobby countered. “I’m not trying to scare you, but you need to make sure. You should have your ears checked for damage, too.” 

Buck groans again, but he knows he can’t argue that. The light is already fading, so he knows that’s temporary, but the ringing has yet to subside, and he’d be lying if he said it doesn’t make him anxious.

“Cap,” Eddie starts.

“Yes, Eddie, you can go with him,” Bobby assures. “The rest of the team has this handled,” Bobby assures them. “We are going to need to call in another ambo, though.”

“Is the father okay?” Buck asks, remembering that he’d had burns.

“Fine enough that the wife nearly insisted on driving him to the ER herself,” Hen says, amused. “Can’t say I blame them with the prices of an ambulance ride, these days. They got into an argument before they ultimately decided to use it. His leg did not want to get into that car.”

Buck hums in thought. He’s fortunate that his insurance with the department covers an ambulance ride, but he knows not everyone is in the same position.

“Where do you want me until the next bus is here?” Eddie asks then.

“At his side,” Bobby says, pointing his finger at Buck. “Don’t want him wandering off into traffic.”

“ _Ha ha_ ,” Buck fake-laughs. “You’re so funny, Cap.” 

Buck can’t see it, but the group smiles fondly at their youngest member. 

“Take care of yourself, Buck,” Bobby says, placing a hand on his shoulder. Buck gives it a pat with his own hand. “Check in after you know something, okay? I’ll be expecting a call.”

* * *

At this time of night, getting Buck checked out is a slow wait. There’s hardly anyone in the emergency room when they arrive, but with fewer doctors available because of the night shift, it takes a while for them to be seen.

Fortunately, as they’d suspected, the blindness is temporary. That much became evident when Buck had started to see Eddie through the bright white splotches in his vision.

What is a little more concerning is his hearing. Though the ringing fades, it doesn’t completely disappear, and despite his best hopes, there _is_ damage.

“The damage is far from life-altering, though,” his doctor assures him. “I’d be surprised to hear that it causes you any trouble in your day-to-day life. Somewhere between eight to twenty-five percent of the population has Tinnitus, and many forget about it as they go about their life.”

“Is there anything I can do to help it?” Buck asks.

“Just the normal things that anyone with or without Tinnitus should practice,” he says. “I can print out some care instructions with your visit summary, but there is no cure. Just care.” The doctor turns to write something on Buck’s chart before facing him again.

At his side, Eddie squeezes his hand, and when Buck glances at him, he can actually see the tentative smile on Eddie’s face. 

“No loud music through your earphones or prolonged exposure to loud sounds. I would even go as far to say that you should keep earplugs on you at all times as a precaution because you never know when you’ll need ‘em, but that’s also something I personally recommend for everyone,” he laughs. “I understand that you’re a firefighter, so I would recommend that you don’t work until the ringing evens out. No need to aggravate it while your ears adjust after the initial trauma, okay?” Buck nods. “And there is the chance that the ringing may disappear altogether, but the damage is done, and sounds can still trigger ringing again. The ringing can even happen without any apparent cause. You understand? And unless you experience an effect on your daily life, or unless you start experiencing dizziness or actual hearing loss, there should be no worry if it does act up.”

Buck nods nervously. “So, I can be cleared to go back to work?” he asks.

“I can clear you, now, yes,” the doctor confirms with his own smile. “As long as you promise that you don’t return until—”

“The ringing has lessened and evens out,” Buck finishes.

“Yes,” the doctor says, pleased that Buck was paying attention. “I would say to wait at least a day or two to be safe. Do either of you have any other concerns or questions?”

Buck shakes his head and glances at Eddie. His boyfriend shakes his head, too.

“None here,” Eddie agrees. “Thank you for everything, doc.”

“My pleasure. A nurse will be along with your discharge papers soon. You boys have a good night.”

With that, the doctor steps away, closing the curtain around Buck’s hospital bed.

Buck immediately collapses backward on the bed and brings his hands to his face, and Eddie’s heart clenches.

“Thank _God_ ,” Buck says emphatically. 

Eddie lets him sit in silence for a moment, before speaking up. “You okay?”

Buck nods but doesn’t remove his hands from his face or speak. 

“Buck,” he prods gently. “It’s okay if you were scared.”

Buck inhales sharply and then exhales shakily, and when he finally removes his hands, he looks at Eddie with red eyes. He’s not crying, but Eddie can tell he wants to. 

“Buck…”

“It was really scary,” Buck admits, just above a whisper. He sits up and Eddie reaches for his hand again. Buck takes it in his own, intertwining their fingers and staring down at their joined hands. He can see the color of Eddie’s skin, but not yet the veins that Buck can feel the ridges of. 

“I don’t think I’ve been that disoriented since the ladder truck incident,” he goes on. “But even then was… it was such a haze.” Buck pauses to blink back some tears. “This was _so_ vivid. I felt like the world was turning upside down when you were moving me, like I was going to fall off the face of the earth.”

Eddie frowns and moves to sit beside Buck on the bed, and the younger man immediately turns into him, pressing his face against Eddie’s neck. Eddie brings his arm around Buck’s shoulders.

“I’m so sorry that happened,” Eddie apologizes. “If I had realized something was wrong, I wouldn’t have moved you like that. But the fire started up in the back and we weren’t equipped to handle a fire on both sides of us.”

“I’m not mad or even slightly upset with you, Eds.” Buck leans up, presses a soft kiss to Eddie’s jaw, then rests his head against him again. “You were being quick on your feet. Those fireworks had every chance of hitting me, and you had no way of knowing that I couldn’t see. I didn’t even realize until they’d stopped going off.”

Eddie nods and presses a kiss to Buck’s head. “I’m still sorry it happened,” he murmurs into Buck’s hair. “You feeling better now?”

Buck nods and sighs heavily. His breathing is even again. 

The nurse chooses then to come by, offering a quiet polite smile as they hand Buck his papers. 

It doesn’t take long for them to gather themselves and leave after that. The visit was enough to fill their hospital quota for the last of the year.

* * *

“Tinnitus,” Buck says later as he lies in bed. “I wonder what that’s like.”

“Meh,” Eddie scrunches his nose from beside Buck. “It’s nothing special. Mine isn’t very severe and I forget it—”

“Yours?” Buck questions, propping himself up onto an arm to stare at him in confusion. “You never said you have Tinnitus.”

Eddie shrugs, tilting his head to look up at Buck. 

“It’s never come up. The only time I hear it is at night. It hardly bugs me, but when it does I’ll leave a fan running or—”

“The radio,” Buck finishes. “And here I was thinking that you just didn’t like silence.” Buck flops onto the bed again. “Do you keep earplugs on you?” he asks.

Eddie laughs and shakes his head. “No. Never.”

“And you blast your music when you work out all the time!” Buck smacks him on the arm. “Eddie!” He shouts, absolutely scandalized. Eddie just laughs harder. Before long, Buck is laughing, too, and it’s music to Eddie’s ears. 

“Okay,” Eddie says after they catch their breaths. He reaches for the lamp on his nightstand. “Let’s get some rest now, Buckley.”

“Hear, hear!” Buck responds. “I think I’ve had enough light for the _week_.”

Eddie snorts, rolling back over to pull Buck into his arms. Things could have been worse, and with the tension of the night seeping away, both men are thankful that it wasn’t. Their job will always have close calls, so they’re both happy to bask in this win.

“I love you, Eds,” Buck whispers into the dark.

Eddie glances down and sees Buck’s eyes already shut.

“I love you, too, Buck.”

**Author's Note:**

> ☼ Please leave kudos/comments as they encourage me to write more! Be sure to let me know if you think I’m missing any necessary/supplementary tags or if you think a tag I have is incorrect.
> 
> ☼ If you actually read these notes, please use this (🧨) emoji in your comment! Even if you don’t have a comment in mind, think of it as some extra kudos that I will appreciate and love!


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